Embodiments herein generally relate to portable devices and printing systems and more particularly relate to a method and apparatus that receive instructions to print an item from a user and delay printing the item until the user is within close proximity of the selected printing device.
Mobile workers may have limited access to printers while on the go; however, the need to print may still exist. For those print jobs that can be deferred until they get to the office, the mobile worker has to remember to print, then find the document, open the document, and finally print it. Some alternative methods for printing from a mobile device only allow users to print to their default printer. The user's computer must be network accessible to the mobile device and turned on. Documents printed from afar to a default printer and picked up later can be a security risk or tend to be lost. Alternatively, mobile print services that send a document to the cloud, do not remind users to print waiting documents when they are near an eligible printer.
The embodiments herein provide a personal print queue where mobile workers can send non-urgent documents to be printed later when they return to the office or other print location. When an individual with a document in their print queue comes into proximity of a discoverable printer, the user's mobile device will alert the user that documents reside in their print queue and a printer is available.
Workers modify their printing behavior based on the accessibility to or capabilities of printers when on the go or at home. More employees are working more often in more places away from their desks and office printers. These potential print users have learned to either work around printer limitations or defer their printing needs.
Typically, people are printing pages containing transient information or documents that they want to read or markup. As one study participants said, “I feel like if it's something that's very dense or complex, I want it printed so I can read it.” Some of these documents to be read and possibly marked up are non-urgent deferrable print jobs. Other printed documents are meeting handouts that can be printed once the remote worker is in the office. Another participant said, “It was so huge that I waited until I got to work, because it was 50 some odd pages, full color, and I thought, ‘. . . if I have to print five copies of this, it will take my machine forever, and I don't know if I have enough toner in there.’” The problem with deferring printing needs is the need to remember to print later and then find the document. The embodiments herein provide a method and system for making the “defer printing” workflow easier.
Thus, with embodiments herein, a user of a computerized device (such as a portable computer, smart phone, camera phone, portable digital assistant (PDA), etc.) often creates electronic items capable of being printed. Such items can be documents, photographs, presentations, spreadsheets, etc. The printable items can be created using the computerized device maintained by the user, or by a different device.
The user can store the item within the internal storage of the computerized device or can upload the items to another device or network. For example, with embodiments herein the printable items can be temporarily stored within a networked storage device (such as a network cloud environment) to which the computerized device and the printing device have access.
Regardless of where the printable items are stored, the user may desire to print the item even though the user does not have immediate access to an appropriate printing device. Therefore, embodiments herein will receive an instruction to perform delayed printing of the item from a user of the computerized device when the user is outside a predetermined physical range of the printing device. Then, the methods herein wait until the computerized device comes within the predetermined physical range of the printing device or devices.
The methods herein use the computerized device to detect when the computerized device is within the predetermined physical range of the printing device and when this occurs the computerized device provides the user a printing option to print the item on the printing device. More specifically, the embodiments herein can detect when the computerized device is within the predetermined physical range of the printing device using a number of different methods.
For example, if the computerized device is global positioning system (GPS) enabled, the embodiments herein can perform a global positioning system location comparison of the computer with a previously established known global position of one or more printing devices. Alternatively, if the computerized device includes a wireless antenna, the embodiments herein can perform a wireless sensing process to identify the presence of one or more wirelessly enable printing devices. Further, if the computerized device is capable of being connected to a network that includes appropriate printers, the embodiments herein can identify such printers as being available when the network connection is established as being active. The user can also provide the computerized device input (through the graphic user interface) that various printing devices are within the predetermined range if the computerized device does not detect the printing devices.
In some embodiments, the graphic user interface of the computerized device can be used to notify the user of the availability of the various printing devices that are detected as being within the predetermined physical range of the printing device. Further, embodiments herein can also provide the various capabilities of the different printing devices to the user (through the graphic user interface of the computerized device) to allow the user to chose one of the printing device for printing the item. For example, different printing devices that are detected can charge different rates for printing, provide different printing options (color, finishing options, etc.), provide different abilities (quality, paper size, speed, etc.), etc., and the embodiments herein present this information on the graphic user interface of the computerized device to allow the user to make an informed decision of which printing device should be utilized (or even if the printing job should be performed at all).
If the user selects the printing option, the methods herein forward the item to a conversion device. Therefore, the printable items can be forwarded directly from the memory of the computerized device or can be downloaded from the networked storage device. The conversion device converts the item to a “print ready” state so that the item can be printed using the selected printing device. The methods herein also cause the item to be forwarded from the conversion device to the printing device and printed on the printing device. The embodiments herein allow the computerized device to communicate with the selected printing device to determine whether the printing of the item is complete. If the printing of the item is complete, the computerized device notifies the user that the printing of the item is complete.
Embodiments described below also include computer storage mediums and computerized devices. One such computerized device can include a graphic user interface operatively connected to a processor. The graphic user interface receives, from the user, the instruction to perform the delayed printing of the printable item (again, when the user is outside a predetermined physical range of at least one printing device). A detector that is operatively connected to the processor detects when the computerized device is within the predetermined physical range of the printing device.
When the computerized device is within the range of the printing device, the graphic user interface provides the user a printing option to print the item on one or more of the detected printing devices. An input/output device, such as a communications port, is also operatively connected to the processor. If the user selects the printing option, the communications port outputs instructions (and data) that cause the item to be forwarded to the printing device and printed on the printing device. The processor determines whether the printing of the item is complete, and if so, the graphic user interface notifies the user that the printing of the item is complete.
The detector used with embodiments herein can comprise any of a number of different physical devices such as network connection devices (physical or wireless) various wireless antenna devices, GPS devices, etc. Therefore, the detector can detect the printing device by performing a global positioning system location comparison of the computerized device and a previously known position of the printing device, performing a wireless sensing of the printing device, connecting the computerized device to a network associated with the printing device, receiving input from the user that the computerized devices within the range of the printing device, etc.
These and other features are described in, or are apparent from, the following detailed description.